AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“I knew that asshole kicked way too hard for any normal man. I mean he kicked me through the fuckin’ air. If it were an Olympic game, he might’ve won gold in human toss.”
Kalina laughed and it was the sweetest sound he could hear. Her giggle could instantly lighten his mood.
“Hey,” Rafe said as something dawned on him. “You said this group Evelyn is leading, it’s a new group? One you’ve never seen before?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I’d never seen any of them until that party.”
“Kane told me earlier today he got word of some shark sightings. He thinks they may be the ones responsible for the attacks.”
“Attacks? Has there been another one?”
“Yeah, it was nasty too. A scuba diving school. The instructor took a group of middle-aged tourists out. Only one out of six of them survived.”
“My God,” Kalina said. “Tiger sharks? Great whites?”
“No,” Rafe said. “Hammerheads.”
“Of course, they are,” she said. “Fierce and bloodthirsty like the guys at the party. The only thing more awful is a great white.”
“Speaking of great whites,” Rafe said. “Seems we may have another one of those around too. Not sure if it’s the one that killed your friend, but…”
“It’s his brother,” Kalina said. “Another part of the drama that unfolded last night. Poet’s brother, Cobalt, is in town searching for the great white responsible for his brother’s death.”
“You people are a dramatic bunch,” Rafe said.
“Tell me about it,” she said. “Maybe that’s why I like you so much. You take me away from it all.”
“Speaking of, I’ve been thinking of taking you somewhere,” he said.
“Yeah? Like where?”
“Guess you’ll have to wait patiently to find out.”
Rafe wasn’t sure she’d be okay with his plan. He knew she wouldn’t go into the ocean with him and being that he loved spending time in the water, it was difficult not sharing that with her. So, he’d come up with the next best thing. He’d taken her bungee jumping already, and he couldn’t possibly top that without making her hop out of a plane, but once again he turned to his buddies and their part-time gigs. It turned out Beanie had the keys to an indoor pool. A YMCA kind of place where he cleaned the pool for the city swim team. The place was closed at night, so nobody would bother them. Rafe moored the boat and hailed a cab, careful to make sure it dropped them off far enough away from the building that nobody would see a car pulling up in the dark parking lot.
When he paid the driver and it sped away, Kalina stood with a corner of her mouth scrunched up, what he guessed was her confused expression.
“Really?” she finally asked. “You wanted to bring me out here to a dark alley?”
“A dark alley would be perfectly fine by me,” he said, “but I had something else in mind. Come on.”
Taking her hand, he pulled her in the direction of the dark lot and the building beyond. She didn’t complain. In fact, she didn’t say much at all. She trusted him, and it was clear she was simply waiting to find out where he was taking her. Once he’d dug the jingling keys from his pocket and opened the door, careful to lock it behind them, he led her into the chlorine filled pool area. It was pitch dark in the room until he found the switches Beanie had told him about on the wall alongside the door. Fumbling through the switches, he first threw the bright overhead lamps on, but quickly extinguished them and flipped other switches until only the underwater lamps shone, filling the room with an aquamarine glow.
“What is this?” she asked, and he knew it was more of a rhetorical question.
Of course, she knew it was a pool. Yet, the look on her face told him she was concerned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I told you about the water,” she said.
“But this isn’t ocean water.”
“Still,” she said.
